AS USUAL
by Awaken the Aeon
Summary: They had an arrangement-that was all.


**01.**

They had an _arrangement—_that was all. Platonic and crisp. Every night, a dark form would slip from the window and onto the third story's fire escape, sliding along the platform and to the window adjacent. Always wearing a familiar red scarf and denim jeans. Nothing fancy, nothing formal—nothing that would say "date" to their consciences or any onlookers. There was never a dinner by candlelight or wine or flowery laughter and not once was there a night spent together afterward. The only sign of their arrangement were the angry red scratches that were left in the reckless wake of their frenzy. On top of that, deceptive hush gripped the apartment at night, making the neighbors too uncomfortable to mention it or assume anything too bold. When the apartment's inhabitants devoted themselves to the feeling of a thigh quivering against their cheek or the rise and fall of labored breaths, they made very little sound. A moan or a gasp was a cherished reward, rare and secretly valuable.

There was no conversation, no exchange of any words other than the solid "yes" or "no" of forming boundaries. Conversation insinuated the fact that they had something in common other than their drive to please and be pleased. What they knew about each other was nothing more than their names and what they had shared about their lives before the odd pact that they'd signed in sex instead of ink and whether something had changed in those lives always went unbeknownst to the other.

It was a nightly ritual. It never failed. Days blended into a month and, that year, one month in May found itself slipping away to three in late June. Their nights were spent part sleeping alone in their own apartments and the other part dancing the tango of two hunters, equal in prowess but always grappling for some detached sense of power and control over the other.

Mikasa always came to Annie's apartment. There were no exceptions to that rule and where they now engaged had come down to who had won a simple game of chicken. After the first night at Leonhardt's, they had tested each other's stubbornness and it was not Annie who yielded first. No knock on the door had been heard—only the sliding of the unlocked window as the scarfed woman grudgingly worked her way inside. When Annie announced her victory with laughter, Mikasa silenced it with pain.

Now, once the window was closed behind her, the woman would hunt her prey, trailing habit to where the light-haired beauty would always be waiting—in the white-tiled kitchen. Cool, calm, and collected, Annie was always sipping coffee from a mug that always ended up banished to the counter top the moment their eyes met. The only sign of their presence there would be the coffee's warmth departing slowly in the form of the steam curling lazily into the air, the sight cast in front of the backdrop of the dark hallway just outside of the kitchen. Just past the threshold, the trail of strewn clothing would begin, always starting with the gray clump of Annie's hoodie but never consistent in its order afterward.

Some nights were ravenous and thunderously-paced. Others were slow with care for the soreness obtained on previous adventures. Only in the peaks of their intensity did they ever accidentally break the skin of the other. It were the bruises they most often woke wincing at in their own apartments the next morning. From teeth and from restraining grips, the dark, discolored marks often found themselves marooned to where they would not be seen by the prying eyes of the public, though the occasional bite mark or hickey would dab its toes into the tepid waters of the neck, testing the luck of its wearer at work the next day. And if its canvas was snickered at, the painted would become the painter the next night, exacting revenge swiftly and pointedly.

They never truly kissed. No, that was a promise reserved for impassioned lovers and such was ground they would not cross. Their lips found other areas to press and lock, to prod and tease but the face was off-limits to that, only the ears excepted. All of this went without saying and had been one of the silent, mutual compromises that had never needed a "yes" or a "no." The fact that the duo could find comfort in such a partnership never crossed their minds as a bit _odd_ after the first night spent tensed with bliss. Such was the unique but thrilling nature of their "arrangement."

She was late.

Bright eyes flickered to the softly-ticking clock. 9:45. Mikasa never showed up later than 9:30 and that was a _fact. _A displeased frown etched itself onto her features and she set down her mug with hardly having taken a single sip since it had been brewed. The prospect of the fae simply _not showing up_ had, like many other things, fled from her thoughts after the first or second night. Rather than view the matter with concern, she looked upon it with disdain but did not move to seek her out just yet.

The hushed squeal of the double-paned window sliding up along its tracks assuaged her mood minutely. There was little forgiveness in her mind, however, as she realized that her coffee had gone cold. When Mikasa appeared, crimson scarf and all, there was no apology in her eyes and that was acceptable, if not expected, to Annie. "Sorry" wouldn't have fixed her cold coffee anyway.

Mikasa reached, as usual, for the hem of her partner's mottled gray hoodie and Annie habitually aided her in its removal. The sense of normalcy returned and Annie found herself once again unfazed. Tonight, she reached for the scarf, using it to tug the woman closer to better access the upper planes of her neck with her lips and teeth. Even as Mikasa accepted the proximity, it felt almost as if she was reluctant to even be touched. She did not lean into the contact as she usually did and instead seemed to just come to terms with the fact that it was there rather than embracing it.

This was not their usual grapple for power. This was, to them, submission.

A kiss at that dimple on her hips, the whisper of breath across the hollow just below her earlobe, a mild nuzzle at the pressure point behind her knees... none of it would work as it usually did. Where she usually received at least the reward of a small gasp or shudder at stimulating Mikasa's most sensitive points—something that had always been silently sought out as a _privilege—_she now received only the acknowledging twitch of a hand or a minuscule curl of the toes. It was then that she could bear the difference no longer and straightened from her stooped position. And with crystalline blue eyes, she stared silently, observing every detail that she could manage, searching for the cure to whatever plight ailed the other. This was not a part of the arrangement.

Mikasa took this as her sign to leave and rolled from the sheet-garbed bed earlier than she was used to, following the jagged path of their garments to seek out her own clothes. Not bothering to even glance at her own discarded items, Annie watched her, brows furrowed with unreadable thought, slowly pinning her hair back up as she watched the other dress.

The scarf was tied more tightly than usual, she noted.

Annie followed Mikasa and settled on the living room's recliner near the window, arms folded and legs crossed, still devoid of any clothing whatsoever. She watched the dark-haired beauty push the glass back open, allowing in the warm, early-July air to waft in, driving the scarfed lady's scent in her direction.

"What's wrong?"

Her voice was low and her words abrupt, sparing no mercy in her tone. To Annie, they had never been anything but equals in this and for that to be thrown back in her face was _insulting_. They had not spent the years before sparring, finding only that they could not best one another, for Mikasa to _submit_ so easily. She didn't even expect Mikasa to even pause at her question and was surprised when she yielded, her hands dropping to rest upon the white windowsill, frozen and tense. Only her scarf shifted in the breeze. She did not turn when she spoke.

"My brother is in a coma." Simple. Her voice was strained, but simple. Flat. Forced.

"Oh."

There was silence.

This was not a part of the arrangement. Variables outside of their meetings had never been considered. The runt's existence teetering between life and death—the one that Mikasa had protected so viciously throughout their childhood—had not been something they'd accounted for in their silent set of terms and conditions defined as "yes" or "no." _Eren_, came his name to Annie in passing reminder. She'd had a small crush on him, once, just a petty little thing, when he'd come to the gym and she'd spent hours flooring him as she tried to teach the blockhead what her father had long ago taught her. He'd been a passionate and fast learner but when he'd fallen a little too hard, lost a little too much breath and had a little too much blood rush, dizzying, to his head, the panther that was his adopted sister had stepped in, optics dark and foreboding with warning and an unmistakable challenge.

"You didn't have to come," Annie said, her voice vacant but persistent, knowing very well that this very statement was more than likely a lie.

"I was trying to forget."

"You could have called."

Annie's stubbornness revealed itself to be glaring and apparent. Both knew very well that neither of them had each other's phone numbers. It was a foolish thing to say and neither of them had to speak to make that clear. A rift of persistent hush gaped between them until Annie finally spoke again, softly.

"How?"

"Mixed the wrong pain meds, we think. Shattered the bones in his lower leg on the twentieth of the month when he fell from a tree while hunting. He probably wasn't paying attention to which medication he'd been taking. We don't know yet, though."

Two days. It'd taken two days for Jaeger to go from a shattered leg to comatose. The possibility of his death plagued Mikasa like a crippling disease and now the pieces fell wholly together in Annie's mind.

"Close the window," Annie murmured after a long pause, a sigh escaping her lips. She rose from her nest on the recliner and slipped into the kitchen. Mikasa stared after her for a long moment before slowly obeying, in no spirits to resist her friend's wishes. That's what they were, weren't they? Friends? In some odd, horribly twisted way?

She stood there idly, shoulders slumped and head bowed in silence until the blonde returned. Annie drew the curtains across the window and set the two empty glasses and full bottle of red wine on the side table of the recliner. A gentle hand pressed into the small of the stricken creature's back was all that was needed to guide her to the chair. Annie didn't trust her lightly-quivering companion's emotions to prevent her from doing something utterly stupid while she was alone. Her judgment was atrocious while she grieved.

When Mikasa's glass was filled to the half-way point, Annie withdrew to the wall with her own after momentarily departing to redress, leaning against the frame of the window and hardly sipping at the crimson liquid, keeping her wits as she watched Mikasa steadily indulge herself in the distraction of intoxication. For an hour they sat like this. Under the predatory but protective vigil of the blue-eyed lioness, the other began to doze but as soon as her head drooped, Annie swept forward and gently took her glass from her.

Looping her arms around her waist so that she could keep her steady, she guided Mikasa to the familiar blanketed planes of the bed and messily tucked the woman in, expression unreadable and unfaltering. As she began to straighten her posture and turn to collect the extra sheets to make her own nest on the couch, Mikasa reached out and lightly grasped the thick fabric Annie's hood.

"Please," came a soft plead and Annie stiffened, turning her head only enough to capture the woman's dark eyes in her peripherals. For a long moment, she stared, contemplating. This was not a part of their arrangement. They'd joined only for something that nobody else could give them—the thrill of the _hunt_, the prowess of two felines grappling on equal ground for power that never swayed in one way or another for too long. They'd never promised anything but consistency and most of all, detachment.

The smell of the sweet wine on Mikasa's breath reached to curl about her nostrils and she sighed, eyes lowering over crystalline orbs for a moment before she relented. She slipped under the covers. Mikasa curled her back against Annie's stomach and chest without hesitation, facing away from her, a scrap of her intoxicated mind still clinging ironically to the habit to being impersonal. She didn't seek to be held in enveloping arms nor did she need to clutch to her and the blonde did not offer these comforts. They merely existed there that night, in slumber and nothing more.

When Annie awoke in the morning, painfully early, the spot beside her was warm but its heat was fading. She heard the sound of the window closing softly and rose to make coffee, emptying the cold cup from the night before into the drain.

center_No matter how dark the night, the dawn always comes, and our journey begins anew./center_

She arrived as usual from then on—9:30 on the dot without fail, before the coffee could even begin to cool. Her ferocity and determination to please grew to unrivaled heights and dawn saw, through the cracks in the curtains, the women in their own apartments, smearing another dose of triple antibiotic cream onto the lines that crossed their backs and sides, wincing when the contact stung but smirking throughout it otherwise. Mikasa had begun to win the battles more often than usual, but Annie always turned the tables when her confidence rose too high, reminding them both that they were, and always would be, equals.

But it was always fun to grapple for the upper hand.

The air crackled with the electric sounds of fireworks nearby, pops and whistles and bangs of all volumes and tones marking the beginning of the city park's annual Fourth of July light show. She paused as she stepped out onto the fire escape at 9:25, watching the dancing streaks in the dark navy sky.

_Eren would have loved to see these right now,_ came the thought. She quickly shook her head at the impending wave of guilt that threatened to crash down on her. She'd already decided that she wasn't to blame. Now, all they could do was just wait for him to be conscious again.

She climbed inside and slowly closed the window behind her. The clock read 9:27 but she hoped that Annie wouldn't mind her earliness too much. As soon as she turned the corner to peer into the kitchen, seeking the other huntress with prying eyes, she hesitated with surprise. Annie's back was turned, still waiting on the coffee to finish brewing its final fresh drops.

_The fireworks must have made her miss the window's sound,_ she thought bemusedly. Nevertheless, Mikasa knew she had an opportunity and would be _damned_ if she missed out on it.

Annie started and gasped at the feeling of hot breath on her neck, fists curling into a ball instantly, using every last ounce of her willpower to resist whirling to smash in the perpetrator's face. She was kept from turning only by the gentle, massaging grip of feminine fingers on her shoulders. A reprimanding glare was tossed behind her, pivoting her head just enough to lock eyes with her early arrival, aware of another tortuously lengthy wave of heated air grazing over the nape of her neck. She bit her lip. Mikasa of all people should have known better than to startle someone trained very thoroughly in various forms of the martial arts. Her irritation was short-lived as a gentle kiss was pressed in an unspoken "I'm sorry," against the tingling skin, once more stimulating one of the most sensitive areas on Annie's body. The reason for it was unfathomable to Mikasa, but to Annie it had always been maddening because of the raw _vulnerability_ that contact to the spot had never failed to infect her with.

Mikasa pulled the neck of the sweatshirt down softly, lapping and nibbling lightly at the areas she exposed. The other woman leaned into the touches, closing her eyes, no longer angry or concerned with the bubbly brewing of her coffee pot. Roaming hands hooked the hem of her hoodie in arched thumbs and drew it upwards. Her fingers caught Annie's undershirt and bra in the course of their ascension. Immediately after she discarded the garments, Mikasa turned her attentions to the healing scratches on her companion's back, kissing them ever-so-softly, almost apologetically. She straightened slowly and up to the shoulders of the slightly-shorter fae, massaging the coiled muscles there. Annie immediately and readily _groaned_ at the relief that rippled down her form, the rare sound taking Mikasa by surprise.

She would not ask, but as far as she knew, Annie still worked at the gym on Fifth Street as a trainer. Mikasa taught wrestling classes every Thursday and always came home in the afternoon relatively sore—she couldn't imagine doing it every day on top of handling the physical exertion of their arrangement. Taking pity on Annie's condition, she leaned forward to murmur into her ear.

"Come."

She tugged her gently from the kitchen by her wrist and down the short hallway and through the last open door, ending her route at the familiar bed they had tangled themselves on countless times. Mikasa urged her onto her stomach with promising kisses on the back of Annie's neck. Slowly and carefully, mindful of her body weight, she straddled the woman once she complied. She pored over every knot in those muscles and shamelessly removing any clothing that got in her way, kneading the tension from Annie's form until the other was completely limp and bare, her efforts fed by the minute moans and whimpers of relief that she received. Had she known that the blonde existed daily with that kind of tension, she would have most certainly done something about it sooner.

Then, without warning or provocation, Annie _rolled, _turning the tables in that wonderful, unpredictable way that she always did. Her fingers locked around Mikasa's scarf, pulling their faces agonizingly close. The startled oriental woman shivered under the brilliant cerulean of those hungry eyes. They scrutinized her own as if searching for something valuable and highly desired. She held her breath, frozen by the natural ice in that gaze. It wasn't until a few long moments had passed before she allowed herself to move. Slowly, Mikasa breathed, lowering and withdrawing just enough to capture a hardened nipple in the grasp of her lips, eyes still locked with her lover's. The breathing of the woman below her quickened minutely. A static seemed to vibrate in the air between them—a heat, an electric hum, a _trust_ that could not be matched. The sensation sent a jolt down Annie's spine, straight through the red scratches on her shoulders and down to her abdomen in a constant, firm, and familiar pulse between her thighs. An odd sense of peace and understanding permeated the air between them—a quiet calm amongst the crashes of the fireworks outside. Platonic, crisp, and strangely considerate, it sang with content.

They said nothing. As usual, actions most definitely spoke louder than words.

Only in simultaneous, thunderous release did their gazes once waver.

She licked her lips, pulling her hair from her eyes and wiping her mouth unceremoniously on the back of her hand. Calculating ocean eyes swept forth to seek the usual sight of her flustered partner splayed breathless upon the sheets. Annie had always taken a subdued joy from the results of her handiwork; the way Mikasa's obsidian hair fanned out from her olive features across the alabaster pillows, the ebb and flow of the shadow that her chest cast on the sheets beside her as her breathing began to slow, the fine and sweeping lines of her eyelashes that flowed from closed lids. The image of the stoic woman so beautifully and gracefully _undone_ was enough incentive for her to want to drive her over the edge _again_ and _again_ until Mikasa had no choice but to stop her, but then again—could a rickety boat stop the waves of the sea by merely asking?

Tonight, those dark eyes had opened again and had found Annie first. She was stunned momentarily, caught unprepared by being caught under that gaze so soon, but recovered quickly, casually bringing Mikasa's knees together and resting her folded arms on them, a victorious smirk plastered on her visage. Smoothly and slowly, the other lass pulled her upper body up in a responding crunch, basking in the appreciative glance that Annie stole at the rippling and toned muscles of her abdomen. She leaned forward, kissing the base of the blonde's ear. The following nip she delivered straight to the hollow there acted as a silent warning: _get rid of that smirk before I purge it from you myself._

Annie lifted her head and her chin to receive the attention, her icy eyes thawing a bit before closing lightly. Mikasa moved up the line of her jaw with patient slowness, dividing her efforts to gently groom and nibble along the path to Annie's chin.

The trail deviated and Annie stiffened when those lips drew too close to hers, jerking her head back and clenching her teeth.

"Ackerman," came her sharp reprimand, eyes flashing open with a familiar ice in them. Mikasa blinked for the briefest of moments, startled by the use of her last name when they hardly ever said even that. Recovery came swift, however, and it only took a few moments for Mikasa to chuckle flatly, shake her head, and withdraw.

Annie observed the woman as she retraced the bread-crumb trail of their garments that snaked out into the hall. Hesitation halted her movements for a few seconds as she watched Mikasa leave the room and then, Annie rose, collecting only her undergarments along the way as she tailed the other in the same manner that a hunter tracks its wounded prey. Dark eyes observed the follower and Mikasa dressed slowly, deliberately, actions a mixture of teasing and caution as if she half-expected the blonde lioness to leap upon her again, to turn the uncertain tables more certainly into her favor as usual. They passed the silent coffee brewer in the kitchen, steam curling minutely from the top of its droplet-clouded pot, the mug cold beside it, untouched and empty.

Mikasa stopped at the glass and glanced expectantly at Annie as she sidled to the wall beside the windowsill, propping her side against it and folding her arms. Their gazes met, steady and unreadable on both ends, and Mikasa waited for something, anything, to happen. The fireworks had stopped and only the light of the moon filtered through the pane, its luminescence giving the impression of her olive skin nearly glowing in its caress.

Impatience made itself known on the scarfed woman's features and she opened her mouth as if to say something, but Annie advanced with lightning reflexes, silencing the impending words by lightly pressing her thumb against Mikasa's parted lips, digits curled beneath her chin. She dragged her touch along the minutely-damp lines of her mouth, her own eyes half-lidded, a lazy, almost undetectable smirk infecting her features.

"Leonhardt," came the soft warning, voice half-hearted and nearly a whisper—more of a teasing dose of karma than anything as her timbre slipped past the thumb trailing across her lips.

The imposing digit lowered to cup Mikasa's jaw line in her palm, a feather-light path being drawn slowly down the bony curve with a fingertip. She swallowed hard at the touch, feeling goosebumps raise along the flesh of her arms and back at the inexplicable rawness of the caress. Annie's eyes searched her features and she kept still under her relentless scrutiny, breathing quickening slightly. Nimble fingers dropped to the fabric of her scarf, gingerly tightening around it to bring her closer.

Their foreheads met and Annie sought Mikasa's gaze once more, capturing it almost immediately. The link of their optics rooted them both in place for a moment and then, with agonizing slowness, the blonde tipped her chin forward. She paused, leaving only the most minuscule of distance between their lips, sending a heated breath across Mikasa's slightly-parted and waiting mouth. She smiled a bit when a soft complaint in the form of a guttural and almost desperate groan left the other.

"Is this what you want?"

So near were they that Mikasa knew that if she even breathed their lips would touch. It took every last bit of her willpower to not press forward at the prospect of contact. She exhaled slowly from her nose, contemplating on whether or not the question was rhetorical. What would she gain from answering? Would a show of weakness now obliterate the equal ground that they'd so comfortably established?

"Please."

Too much respect for the shorter woman was held to deny her an answer to the question. Annie's other thumb found her cheek, stroking the skin softly. Then, slowly, carefully, she closed the distance between her lips with a firm but gentle tug on Mikasa's scarf.

Tentative felt to be an understatement to describe the touch and yet the kiss seemed to burn with electricity on their lips, sending jolts straight down to their guts. So often had they left each other writhing at the mercy of those lips and yet not once had they ever met and even this slightest of brush seemed to mean something, seemed to set them on _fire_. Mikasa was the first to lean into it, taking the control of the embrace that had previously been off-limits. Even now, it felt dangerously foreign and painfully risky—as if this step over the lines they'd silently laid out would send their relations teetering into a descent in which it could not recover from.

One kiss. That was all. After an eternity of a moment, they pulled away in unison, still highly attuned to the same wavelength of thought that they'd forged their entire arrangement on. A glance was exchanged between them but before either could be compelled to say a word, Mikasa turned to the window, sliding it open and hauling herself out, stepping out into the humid summer air, closing her exit quietly behind her.

As usual, the next morning, they nursed their still-healing wounds with triple antibiotic, grateful for the gentle exchanges that had not added to the mending scratches and marks. As usual, they prodded the bruises in remembrance of the power struggle that had caused them, a smirk playing across their features even as they winced from the soreness.

Unusually, they trailed their fingers across their lips with feather-light touches, only to find that their own skin could not replicate the brush of their mouths on a warm July night, and as usual they anticipated the next fall of the sun below the horizon—but this time, for all the wrong reasons.


End file.
